Our Keep Safe
by MeganxDegrassi
Summary: Eli is doing everything to keep Julia safe from herself, the drugs are working, but for how long until things spiral out of control.


**Ho hum, Hello everyone. So, this is a story of Eli and Julia, taking place just days before the accident that took her life. It may not be pleasing to everyone's views, because there is a good amount of drug use, but, give it a chance, I think I have this planned out pretty well, maybe. Enjoy, xoxo. **

"Julia, not today, please. I'm still coming down from yesterday," Eli rubbed his temples at he looked at his girlfriend pleadingly. Julia was holding a freshly rolled blunt and leaning against the windowsill in Eli's nearly trashed room.

"But that stuff was much different. This is just weed, our good old friend until the end!" Julia cheered, looking out into the night sky as she lit the blunt and placed it at her mouth, giving her that tingly feeling that she was right at home here, with her boyfriend, all that was missing was the high and not that natural high nonsense, but the real thing. Her elation for the moment grew as she anticipated the high, inhaling the fresh smoke and feeling the warm burn in the back of her throat.

"Fine, just count me out. I think I'm going to go a day sober, try to remember what it's like," though Eli's tone was sarcastic as usual, he was serious; the Ecstasy they took last night had been too much for him, he needed a day to come down, at the least.

A devilish smile played across Julia's face as she moved away from the windowsill and towards Eli, who was perched on the edge of his bed, watching her curiously. She placed her hands on both of his shoulders, causing him to react in a slight smirk and a quirk of an eyebrow. Slowly, she blew out the smoke she had been holding in the back of her throat into her boyfriend's face, watching the way his reaction played over in his eyes.

Eli groaned as the precious smoke infected his nostrils, intoxicating him with the smell he'd grown so used to recently, "Why must you do this to me?"

Julia licked her lips and handed him the blunt, "Because, I don't want you to miss out, love."

Quick to cave, Eli put the blunt to his lips and inhaled the delicious smoke in deeply.

Not much later, Eli and Julia were flying with the clouds in the night sky, enjoying the high together. They sat on his bed, on their way to finishing an entire gallon-sized bucket of popcorn and laughing as they found their incoherent babbles to be genius.

"No, no! Explain to me how they get paper so _soft_ when trees are so _rough_ and _hard,_" Eli said, holding a piece of paper he found on his floor to his face, sliding it slowly on his cheek to absorb all its softness.

Julia burst out laughing, "Do you have any idea what you just said?"

Eli stopped with the paper, but still held it to his face, "No… wait, what was I talking about?"

Julia smiled and shook her head, abruptly talking the paper from Eli to try to understand this phenomenon. She grabbed it a bit too abruptly, causing the edge of the paper to glide across her pointer finger, and pierce her finger tip, "Oww! Paper cut! Kiss it all better?" She held her finger out to her boyfriend, who kissed it gently.

"Who knew something so soft could be so dangerous!" Eli exclaimed, examining Julia's fingertip with great care, "Luckily, I think you'll make a speedy recovery."

She smiled at him then lay back on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, "You know, I could stay here with you forever, Eli. It's so easy when the rest of the world doesn't exist, it's just me, you, and the bright shiny stars, right here, right now."

Eli chuckled and lay down next to her, "Well, the stars aren't technically in here with us, either. It's just you and I, my love."

"No, I mean the stars on your ceiling! Were they always there?" Julia asked, pointing to Eli's plain white ceiling.

"Julia! You're tripping! How? We didn't even smoke that much!" He laughed at his girlfriend's so called vision of stars on his ceiling in his gothic themed room.

She put her hands on her face and laughed at herself, "I don't know! But it happened!" She turned onto her side and looked at Eli affectionately, "I'll just look at my gorgeous boyfriend to try to forget the fact that it looks like there's no roof in here, and we're about to fly into outer space."

Eli smiled and took her hand, "I won't let you float away without me. Wherever you go, I do too."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Suddenly, incoherent and impassioned, the couple clung to each other, kissing passionately and happily in the night, barely aware that the sun was about to peek over the horizon, only seeing each other while the rest of the world went completely blurry and hazy.

Xxxx

Bullfrog swung open the door to Eli's room, "My gosh! You're still asleep!" Bullfrog's voice boomed as he laughed, waking the sleeping teenagers, "Oh, what it was like to be young! Guess you two are enjoying spring break, _but wake up and take in the day!"_

Eli sat up, exposing his shirtless torso to the brisk air in his room, resulting from the window being open all night. He wanted his father out of the room immediately, well aware of his girlfriend's naked state underneath the covers, "Okay Bullfrog, we're up, thanks."

"No problem!" Bullfrog boomed with a bright smile staying on his face as he stepped out of the room and slammed the door.

Locating his boxers on the floor with his eyes, Eli slid out of bed and slipped them on, turning to Julia, who was now sitting up in bed, holding the covers to her body.

"How is he always so chipper?" Julia spoke sleepily, her eyesight starting to come to play as the room around her came into vision.

Eli shrugged, picking her clothes off the floor and lightly tossing them on the bed beside her.

"Thanks," she breathed, taking the clothing and sliding them on underneath the blankets.

Eli nodded and put on a pair of black skinny jeans, "Were you planning on staying her all break?"

"I wish I could stay here for the rest of my life, and never go home, ever," she sighed and stood up, pulling her black miniskirt up the rest of the way.

Clenching his teeth, Eli made his way to his girlfriend. He kissed her gently once and nodded, "I wish you could, too, love." He was well aware of the Hell Julia entered every time she stepped foot in her own house. Mentally abused by her parents, she was always told how imperfect she was, causing her to have little-to-no self esteem, pushing herself to levels of self mutilation that Eli would give anything to prevent.

It was why they picked up drugs.

From the day Eli found this beautiful girl, who was perched up in a tree, crying her eyes out, Eli just _knew_ it was his job to protect her. She pushed him away at first, not wanting him to discover anything about her unsuccessful, meaningless life, or to know that she was just days away from ending it completely. But, Eli didn't give in, sensing her instability and soon breaking down her walls to find the torture that was her life and the cuts up her arms, legs, and sides.

Discovering these terrible things about the way she was treated and the way she was treating herself pushed him further, realizing he'd do anything to help this girl live happily. So, they started smoking, a process they found that easily silenced the world around them. When she felt like she was hurting, they smoked; when she didn't think she could carry on, they smoked; every time she was pushed over the edge by any one person, they smoked. Eli found that the process worked, Julia's cuts began healing and turned to scars as if she'd forgotten that hurting herself was ever an option.

Often, they found themselves experimenting with heavier drugs and always just finding that weed was the easiest and the best way to go. Now, neither of them was sure they could go a day sober, not that they ever particularly wanted to.

Holding hands, the couple made their way to the kitchen, stomach's growling for anything food. Cece was in there, doing the dishes frantically and chaotically as ever, "Afternoon, you two! Must've been a late night, it's nearly four o'clock!"

Eli smiled at his mom's statement, knowing she wouldn't want to know what made it such a late night. He pulled out a chair at the table for Julia to sit, "A very late night."

"Guess we're night owls," Julia added, sitting down in the chair Eli offered her.

Cece laughed an shook her head, "You two must be hungry, how about some waffles?"

"Sounds great."

"Yes, please."

Eli and Julia sounded together, Eli taking the seat next to Julia at the table.

Xxxx

After their breakfast, or rather lunch, the two of them walked to the ravine to join the friends who they partied with on a regular basis but couldn't call any of them by name. They walked around, taking in the day happily, holding hands and slowly letting their bodies adjust t the warmth of the sun they had failed to see the previous day.

They ended up joining a circle of people (friends?), who were discussing their most crazy trips and the strangest drugs they'd ever tried. Eli and Julia listened and laughing, sharing their own stories with the group of young people whose eyes were sunken and bodies were weak due to the amounts of drugs they'd done within the past few years of their lives.

In the middle of a red-heads riveting story about the purple unicorn she saw while on a spice, Julia's phone went off in her pocket and she left the group to answer the call in private. Protectively, Eli watched her, still sitting with the group but zoning out their stories to try to hear what she was saying from too far a distance to make anything out.

When she finally hung up the phone and slid it back in her pocket, Eli stood up and made his way over to her. Tear streaks were freshly lining her face and smudging her mascara and eyeliner. Instinctively, he took both his thumbs and wiped underneath her eyes to both stop her crying and to fix her makeup.

"Your parents?" He asked, his body tensing as she nodded her head, "What did they say?"

She shook her head, holding back more tears as she replied angrily, "The usual, Eli! I'm useless and worth nothing, a pathetic—"

"Hey, stop right there. You're perfect and I wouldn't want you any other way. I love you for you and everything about you. And, someday, you won't even have to care what they think. We'll run away together and escape all this." Eli lifted her chin up gently to look her in the eyes.

A light smile slowly appeared on her face as she nodded and kissed her loveable boyfriend happily, "Of course, I'm sorry for getting worked up."

"Not a problem, love," He took her hand, "I think they're going to light up soon, we don't want to miss it."

They walked over and rejoined the talkative group who were now excitedly yelling across the circle at each other.

"That stuff is crazy!" A scrawny blonde said from across the circle.

"But it's so good!" A guy of maybe twenty-two but looked about fifty retorted, pulling a small baggy filled with a white powder.

"Coke?" Eli asked, raising his eyebrows, "It's not _that _crazy."

"Not coke, meth!" The blonde practically screamed, giddily jumping out of her spot in the circle at the sight of the substance.

"Oh," Eli's eyes widened slightly, "Yeah, that stuff is crazy. I'm never doing it again."

"Suit yourself, pretty boy," the older guy smiled, drawing a few lines of the substance onto a rock, motioning for anyone willing to try to come and join him.

Julia got up to join the group and partake in the activity, but Eli took her arm, "What are you doing? Remember that stuff? It was bad… we can just suffice with some weed, love."

Julia shook her head, "You can, but I need some of this," She motioned to the group of people who were sniffing the meth into their systems, pulling her arm out of his grasp.

"Please, Julia."

"Eli, I need this," Julia proclaimed with finality and skipped over to the group to take her turn.

Eli sighed to himself, rolling a blunt of his own weed while his girlfriend experimented with something much heavier.

**Mmmmmkay, so, you kind of understand where this is going? Maaaybe? I originally planned it as a three-shot ordeal, but I might shorten it to a two shot, and just make this next 'chapter' long. I hope you're enjoying it so far, and yes, the fight and Julia's death scene will play out in this short story. Please review, reviews keep me going! And check out my other stories too (:. **


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